When I fell pregnant at seventeen, I didn’t just lose my youth; I lost my shadow. I learned to shrink, to hide my growing belly behind cafeteria trays while the girls I once called friends shopped for prom dresses. I swapped pep rallies for WIC forms and sonogram rooms where the volume was always turned down low. Evan, the varsity starter with the “golden boy” smile, had promised he’d be there every step of the way. But by the next morning, he was a ghost. His mother slammed the door in my face, he blocked my number, and he vanished “out west,” leaving a teenager to navigate the wreckage of a shared mistake alone.
For sixteen years, I was the only wall between my twin sons and the world’s cruelty. I ate peanut butter on stale bread so Liam and Noah could have the bigger piece of chicken. I worked double shifts at the diner until my server shoes squelched with rainwater and my bones ached with a fatigue that sleep couldn’t fix. We had a life built on rituals: Friday movie nights, pancakes on test days, and a hard-won peace. When they were accepted into a prestigious dual-enrollment college program, I cried in the parking lot, certain that the hardest part of our journey was finally behind us.
I was wrong.
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